Doyel: Notre Dame shows its best dance steps to Wichita State

Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

Notre Dame vs. Kentucky%2C 8%3A49 p.m. Saturday%2C TBS

CLEVELAND – Jerian Grant was scowling. Demetrius Jackson was plodding along slowly with ice bags up and down his legs. Pat Connaughton was doing some of both, scowling and plodding, bringing up the rear and then realizing how ridiculous this must have looked to anyone who was watching the three Notre Dame players make their way to the postgame press conference.

"We look like a disgruntled trio," Connaughton said.

Are you?

Connaughton didn't answer. But he did start dancing, doing a little bit of what Notre Dame will do for at least one more game in one of the most magical seasons in program history. Not since 1909 has a Notre Dame team won more games than this one. Not since 1979 has a Notre Dame team gone as far into the NCAA tournament as this one.

And not since 1978 has Notre Dame gone where this scowling, plodding, magical team still can go – the Final Four – after the Irish beat Wichita State 81-70 on Thursday night to reach the Midwest Region title game.

The Irish won this one by detonating on Wichita State early in the second half, responding to the Shockers' resilience by showing some of their own. Down 18-5 early, Wichita State methodically clawed back to within 33-30 at the half, then went ahead 38-37 for its first lead of the game.

And only lead of the game.

Notre Dame coach Mike Brey called timeout, and what happened next was an epic run that started with two straight Jackson 3-pointers, included two more 3s from Steve Vasturia, and saw Connaughton score on a reverse, a hanging layup and a 3-pointer. When it was over, Notre Dame had reeled off a 38-18 spurt to turn a one-point deficit into a 75-56 lead with 4:36 left.

That timeout was Brey at his most brilliant. Nah! But what he told the media afterward was Brey at his most humble.

"Those timeouts are so long, I hadn't even gone into the huddle," Brey said. "They – they – figured it out."

Figured what out?

"During that timeout, it wasn't about strategy – it was about defense and getting stops," Connaughton said. "It's something you feed off of. It's blood in the water. It's something you can't get enough of."

This was the Notre Dame of Brey's dreams, and Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall's nightmares. Another Notre Dame, a beatable Notre Dame, appeared earlier in this NCAA tournament against game teams that didn't have the star power to finish off the Irish, Northeastern and Butler, who played the Irish into the final seconds – Butler took Notre Dame into overtime – before losing.

That Notre Dame didn't show up against Wichita State. The Shockers got the one that posted so many of its 32 victories, the most by an Irish team since 1909 (33-7). The Notre Dame that showed up Thursday was the offensively efficient masterpiece Brey has had on his hands from the moment Connaughton turned down a full-time shot at professional baseball and Grant turned down the NBA draft in the hours after Notre Dame's season-ending loss to Wake Forest at the 2014 ACC tournament. Those two joined Jackson and emerging star Vasturia to give Notre Dame a quartet of college guards as good as any in the country.

"There was nobody to cheat off of," Marshall said.

That quartet of Notre Dame guards scored a combined 60 points. Jackson (20 points), Connaughton (16) and Vasturia (15) were a combined 19-of-34 from the field (55.9 percent), and 8-of-16 on 3-pointers. Grant (nine points, 3-for-8 shooting) wasn't so hot, but he was perhaps the most devastating player on the floor with 11 assists and just two turnovers. His assists were daggers: A no-look clothesline to Connaughton for a corner 3-pointer, another no-look zip to Zach Auguste for a layup, a pass from his hip pocket to Vasturia's shooting pocket for a 3-pointer. In all, Grant had six assists in that game-turning 38-18 run, plus a 3-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer that had his father, longtime NBA player Harvey Grant, standing and giving a slow clap.

Brey watched that run happen. You could even say he let that run happen. Brey himself would say it. Heck, he did say it.

"One of the biggest (rules I have) is: Don't over-coach your team when it's running," he said. "Let them figure it out. This nucleus knows how to play on the offensive end."

Knows better than almost anybody in the country, by a handful of metrics. The Irish were second nationally in field-goal shooting (51 percent), fourth in assist-turnover ratio (1.6-to-1), fifth in fewest turnovers per game (9.4) and 13th in scoring (78.2 ppg).

All of those qualities were on display Thursday night. The Irish hit seven of their first eight shots to take that 18-5 lead, then hit 17-of-22 shots (77.3 percent) to open the second half. By game's end, the Irish had topped their season scoring average, shot 55.6 percent from the floor and handed out 18 assists to just 11 turnovers.

They did it against a Wichita State team that entered the tournament allowing just 55.8 points per game, seventh-best in the country, and featured two-time conference defensive player of the year Tekele Cotton and two-time all-conference defender Fred VanVleet.

Notre Dame tore that defense, and those defensive backcourt stars, to pieces.

When it was over, when they were finished scowling and plodding, Notre Dame's three biggest stars found the press conference room full. For the first time all night, Wichita State had beaten the Irish to a spot. So here's what Demetrius Jackson and Jerian Grant did: They spotted a bucket of trail mix, and they started eating by the handful. And they waited.